environmental and geosciences
Sweden carries out advanced research within astronomy, climate, environmental and geosciences. These research disciplines are necessary to meet future societal challenges and enables new technical solutions, innovations and progress within basic research. Climate, environmental and geosciences are crucial for societal development and for understanding and influencing the prerequisites for life in the world around us. Astronomy and astroparticle physics help us understand the structure, development and origins of the universe. Space physics are central to explaining how the Sun and the Earth interact, and what effects this might have on technical systems and societal functions, for example.
5.1 Key issues
It is important to have access to a broad range of complementary national and international research infrastructures for research within astronomy, climate, environmental and geosciences. For example, astronomy needs access to data from the entire electromagnetic wavelength area, but is also dependent on studies of particles and gravity waves. Many central research questions within space physics and astronomy also require a combination of ground and space-based observations.
Within climate, environmental and geosciences, we need continued investment in long time series, at the same time as there is a need for mobility and flexibility for advanced measurements in differing environments where the natural complexity is considered, and to utilise Sweden’s large variation in environment types and climate zones. In addition, increased opportunities to carry out large-scale experiments in each environment studied are needed, to identify and quantify causal relationships in a very complex reality.
All fields touched upon in this chapter need long-term investment in infrastruc-tures that generate long measurement series adapted for research. Long time series of research data with sufficient resolution in both time and space are important to enable determination of when changes occur, and to develop and verify models for complex processes. Investments that reinforce Sweden’s ability to generate, pre-serve and refine long measurement series for research within each field are therefore central, which means an ongoing need for continuous access to infrastructures with the relevant measurement capacity over a long period – in many cases over several decades.
Method and technology development are central for world-leading research and increased innovation potential. Many of the major scientific breakthroughs are
enabled through the development of new methods and techniques at research infra-structures, and earlier investments, where such development has been a prioritised and integrated part, emerge as good examples. In the future, mobile, autonomous and adaptable techniques for in-situ studies should also be encouraged.
There is an increasing need to enable combination of information from different types of research infrastructure, and sometimes this is a requirement for in-depth understanding of complex processes. Examples of this are combinations of space and ground-based measurements for modelling global greenhouse gas balances.
Improved infrastructure coordination does not just benefit Swedish research, but also provides better prerequisites for work with many societal challenges, such as the global sustainability goals. Improved organisation, less competition between organisations and increased resources for user support and data handling would offer greater opportunities for research and the impact of research.
It is also desirable for Sweden to take part in the international investments that are striving towards greater sensitivity and increased resolution (i.e. better focus in order to see details and opportunities to reach shorter length and time scales), which is needed for paradigm shifts within fields such as astronomy, space physics and astroparticle physics.
5.2 Areas that need development, changes to funding or other measures
The fact that research within all areas is becoming more data-intensive creates a need for infrastructures for data handling, data storage and data-intensive cal-culations that are available to all research fields. The need for HPC resources for advanced modelling of climate models, for example, will continue to increase.
5.2.1 Astronomy and astroparticle physics
Long-term access to research infrastructures with high resolution and sensitivity continues to be important. Observation-based activities within astronomy and astroparticle physics is entirely dependent on Swedish researchers’ access to major international infrastructures. Continued membership of the European astronomy organisation ESO is important to ensure Sweden can continue to conduct first-class research within the field. Access to facilities outside ESO, such as within radio astronomy and solar physics, is also central. Sweden holds a prominent position within these areas, and has a tradition of strong technology development. ESFRI’s roadmap mentions the international radio astronomy infrastructure SKA and ESO’s upcoming optical telescope E-ELT as developed landmark projects. The projects are operated through studies of subjects such as the early universe (cosmology), galaxy development and super-heavy black holes, new discoveries of exo-planets and their bio-markers. The facilities can also be used for studying gravity waves.
Together with the current radio telescope ALMA, SKA will probably be the most important instrument within radio astronomy in the future. Within optical astrono-my, E-ELT will dominate with the support of ESO’s other telescopes, such as VLT.
The planned European solar telescope EST is an ESFRI project, which in the long term is expected to replace the Swedish solar telescope SST. These new facilities are important for Swedish researchers, and participation is therefore urgent. Within astroparticle physics, major progress has been made at IceCube within neutrino
astronomy, which has justified a possible expansion of this infrastructure. Sweden has played a central role in the IceCube project from the start. National nodes with-in radio astronomy, optical astronomy and solar physics will contwith-inue to be impor-tant in the future, and should be focused towards primarily supporting, operating and to some extent supplementing the major international facilities.
5.2.2 Space physics
Studies of the space environment around the Earth and their link to the Earth’s atmosphere are important in order to safeguard communication systems, electricity distribution and satellites, but also to understand climate change and its effects. The research includes observations of northern lights, space weather, meteors and space junk. The ongoing upgrade of the radar facility ESICAT to EISCAT3D will provide new opportunities for studies of near space and the upper atmosphere, in particular cloud formation and turbulence. To utilise these opportunities in an optimal way, support should be provided to the international consortium formation and increased coordination with other existing infrastructures.
5.2.3 Geosciences
Observation systems for long-term local, regional or global measurements are necessary for understanding the Earth’s dynamics. This is done through ground-based international networks for studying the composition of the Earth, but are also used for researching and monitoring earthquake zones and volcanoes. These are supplemented by satellite platforms, such as within ESA’s Copernicus programme.
EPOS is an initiative for coordinating, optimising and giving researchers access to data from all observation networks across the continent. Swedish participation in a future EPOS-ERIC should therefore be considered.
Sampling at below-ground level is necessary for studying areas such as the development of the planet, the origin and development of life and its prerequisites, groundwater and water quality, and also mineral resources. The Swedish Research Council is a member of the international boring programmes IODP and ICDP to give Swedish researchers access to the most advanced tools for sampling below the seabed and on land. Through the boring platform Riksriggen, Swedish research also has access to the most cost-effective platform for boring on land.
Analysis instruments with high precision and resolution, such as Nordsim/Vega and beam lines at MAX IV are urgently needed to enable research into the develop-ment of the Earth and solar system, as the key to these large-scale processes is often found in the structure and the chemical composition of individual grains of minerals. These analyses are also needed to understand the hydrological cycle, soil characteristics and the development of life.
5.2.4 Climate and environment
Sweden is very varied in terms of environmental conditions on land and along our long coastline. This provides outstanding opportunities to conduct research in many climate zones and habitat types, and to carry out integrated studies of land, ground and water environments and the atmosphere. Continued development of and coordi-nation between coordi-national and intercoordi-national infrastructures for this type of research, such as the national field stations organised within SITES for studying ecosystems and ICOS and ACTRIS for measuring carbon dioxide and aerosols, would be very
beneficial for generating comparable data series and knowledge development across ecosystem and discipline borders.
Sweden’s high-quality marine research infrastructures in the form of ships, unmanned vessels, research stations and stationary measurement buoys need to be coordinated for simpler and more effective use. This would be of benefit for Swedish research within marine sciences, meteorology, limnology, geology, re-source management and environmental monitoring. Coordination of the stationary marine platforms and development of the coast-proximate marine data collection with inspiration from SITES should be considered, as well as membership of EMBRC-ERIC, a European coordination infrastructure for marine biology and ecology. The capacity that the icebreaker Oden gives to Swedish polar research is important and needs to be safeguarded.
Better understanding of how systems respond to outside influence, such as cli-mate changes, is one of our greatest challenges. This is conditional upon measure-ments and experimeasure-ments that are carried out on site and include the complexity of the systems, but can simultaneously be replicated and conducted over sufficiently long timescales. For this reason, we need to establish mobile and flexible measuring systems and experiment environments that can be linked to existing infrastructures.
Investment in environmental and climate databases continues to be important. As a complement to these databases, we also need sample banks to give quick answers to questions such as how, when and why changes have occurred, and to provide knowl-edge of time series when new methods become available. Here there is a need to investigate the prerequisites for a coordinated and comprehensive Swedish sample bank operation for environmental samples.
5.3 Recommendations
• Long-term support for research infrastructure within climate and environ-ment, geosciences, space and atmospheric physics and astronomy should be safeguarded. Many phenomena within these fields need to be studied over a long time in order to be understood. The timescales vary, but the need for long time series is a common factor.
• Regular, substantial and long-term investment in development of state-of-the-art measuring methods, models and technologies for infrastructures should be implemented within astronomy and climate, environmental and geosciences.
• The construction of the international space radar facility EISCAT3D, which Sweden is hosting, has begun. To optimise the scientific benefit of EISCAT3D, a strategic plan should be developed for complementary observations and for how new user groups can utilise the infrastructure and its opportunities.
• To retain Sweden’s strong position within radio astronomy, solar physics and astroparticle physics, Swedish participation in international investments and collaborations is recommended. Participation in international large-scale infrastructures is a prerequisite for carrying out first-class Swedish research in these areas.
• Access to and the development of mobile, flexible and autonomous platforms for both measurements and experiments should be ensured. This would ena-ble on-site studies of complex systems in order to understand processes and causal relationships within climate, environmental and geosciences.
• Improved coordination of existing marine infrastructures, such as research stations, research ships and other research platforms should be striven for.
Small increases in resources here can lead to major scientific gains that con-tribute to important societal goals, such as the global sustainability goal.
• An investigation into the needs of research for long-term storage of environ-mental samples should be conducted. The investigation should include an overview of the sample banks that exist, what new additions are needed, and how the desired coordination and accessibility shall be achieved.